Here's To You!🥂

 Oh Wow! A huge, huge thank you to everyone who visited this page recently. I see more than 16,000 visits to the page, which looks like a United Nations assembly. Shout out to the readers/visitors from: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Kazakstan, Nigeria, Ukraine and Vietnam, Albania, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, Phillipines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, United Kingdom and USA.

Here's to you all.🍹

It absolutely warms my heart to see all who came across this page - and I hope it wasn't the last visit.

I saw that you visited lots of pages - about my travels, Barbados' cultural expressions...even the Independence and Christmas entries! 

If this is Ai, more power. Hopefully the human readers are  enjoying it. 

This year the Crop Over season is coming to a close and just because I know some of you wanted to catch my thoughts on the music of Barbados' sweetest summer festival, Crop Over, I bring you reflections on last year's and what I know of this year's ... 

Sweet Kaiso

Last year, the quality of social commentary for the Pic-O-De-Crop (calypso king) title was generally commended. There was wit, satire, lots of humour and during the finals some tried their picong verses.  The eventual winner, Mr. Blood (Anderson Armstrong) did not waste time on picong.  He stuck to his task, which was to call for recognition for those calypsonians who paved the way for the current talents. You may click on the link for the full 7 hours of competition. 

However, the performer who brought the proverbial house down was the eventual third-placed winner, De Announcer. He was my poster boy in my last post - my year end reflections. Boy did he look grand in a fabulous dress and those wigs. It was a highly entertaining performance and in another 24 hours we'll know who rules for 2026.

Here are some of this year's Pic-o-de Crop competitors

One for de Road

While most fans enjoyed the social commentary, some can't relate to the party music. This year I've not followed the music, all I know is that Mikey won the Power  Soca and Sweet Soca competition and his Power Soca, "Like Ah Bajan" was used by Barbados' athletes fir their entrance to the Central American and Caribbean Games! It is catchy and I always like Mikey's work. Listen to it via the link above. These are our two flag bearers - members of our national field hockey team.

Fave Song O'Last Season

Since I didn't share it last year, I'll do so now. This was my fave song of the 2025 season - Bobo's "Favourite Time of Year". I trust you enjoy it as much as I do. Red Boyz did an awesome job on this recording and it got some love last year. 🎶🎵

            Calypsonian "Bobo" had one of the popular tunes for the 2025 Crop Over season

As always I can't sign off for Crop Over without a splash of colour. On Kadooment Monday (August 3, 2026) we'll see the band designers' creations for 2026 and the spectacle of thousands of people "wukking up like a Bajan". The image below is taken from the National Cultural Foundation's Festivals page. Whoever she is, I hope she doesn't mind a few thousand people seeing how she enjoyed a Kadooment in the past.💃

Til next time....💃